GMV can be misleading & is no longer an important metric: Alibaba's Jack Ma

We believe Alibaba is an engine, which has financial services, logistics, cloud and other services, said Jack MaPayal Ganguly | ET Bureau | Updated: November 14, 2016, 15:46 IST

Chinese Internet company Alibaba recently closed its annual sale event on Single's Day or November 11, selling merchandise worth $17.787 billion to millions of Chinese and shoppers overseas.

This is a 32 % jump over last year's gross merchandise value in terms of the Chinese currency RMB, which is not affected by foreign exchange rate fluctuations. Though significant, founder of Alibaba Group Jack Ma believes that the number does not truly represent what the internet group stands for.

“GMV can be misleading and is no longer an important metric of our performance. The numbers given by us is leading other platforms to target acquisitions (to reach the numbers). We believe Alibaba is an engine, which has financial services, logistics, cloud and other services. Our resources are invested in a globalised world over the next 20 years. Therefore, we have stopped reporting GMV numbers in the quarterly reports,“ said Ma at the end of the sale event in his speech in Mandarin.

While maintaining his stance that the number meant little, Ma also defended the GMV numbers reported so far, which have been under fire, more recently, as a part of a probe by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, as disclosed by Alibaba's annual report.

The company, which listed for $25 billion on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014, was questioned by SEC for releasing unaudited GMV numbers as part of its Single's Day sale event in 2015 which did not include returns.

“There is a misconception in the west and we will prove that our numbers are right. Maybe we will have our 10th or 15th Single's Day sale anniversary out of Europe, Japan or US, across the globe,“ said Ma.

He also defended the charges of fakes being sold across the different platforms, which are subsidiaries of Alibaba Group including Taobao and Tmall, adding that the company was willing to help law enforcement with its data on sellers who manufactured fakes.

The event saw appearances from celebrities like David and Victoria Beckham, who launched some of their exclusive designs on the sale event, as well as Hollywood actor Scarlett Johansson.

According to Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba Group, close to 14,000 international brands were part of the Single's Day event and contributed to one-third of its sales.